Southpaws of the World, Unite!

So, in the last two weeks since arriving in Asia, I've had approximately a dozen people ask me, "why do you write with your left hand??" Now, for the Asians in the crowd, you know that in general, there's a strong cultural preference among Asians to write with your right hand; however, my parents, being the renegades that they were and still are, never enforced this with me, and thus I am a leftie. My lefthandedness is a real topic of fascination among the Chinese people I've met, you'd think that they'd never seen anyone use their left hand before! Typically, it goes as followed: I'll be writing down something for someone (my Chinese name, my email address, a book title, etc, etc...), and he/she will immediately zoom in on my writing hand; there'll be a look of confusion/awe/bewilderment/absolute horror/a furious whisper with a cohort, and then a timid, "why do you write with your left hand?" I'll do my best to explain that I've always used my left hand, that it's always been natural to me. Next, the individual will smile and nod, and say something along the lines of: "You must have a very powerful right hemisphere of your brain!" or "how wonderful!" or "you must be very smart to have mastered such a difficult talent!"....anyway, I'm not sure if they're just giving me lip service, but then secretly running home to cleanse themselves of their meeting with the devil, but I find it curious how much attention it draws. Southpaws of the world, unite! Com'on, it's common knowledge that we lefties (all 20-25% of us) are far more intelligent, creative, and better looking than the hegemonic right! I'm now in Huangshan City (Tunxi), in the Anhui province of China. Anhui is one of the poorest provinces, located in the eastern-central region of the country. Huangshan translates as "Yellow Mountain" in English. Huang=Yellow, Shan=Mountain. I was actually here two years ago on my own, but my mother really wanted to come, so I figured, why not? Huangshan is widely considered to be the most beautiful mountain in China; I believe part of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was filmed here, but don't quote me on it. Our plan is to climb up tomorrow during the day, and spend the night at the summit in order to see the sunrise. Last time I was here, I spent a total of 20 hours in the area, which means that I basically ran up and down the mountain, and paid dearly for it, as I couldn't really walk down stairs for the next week because I was SO sore. Hopefully this year's climb will be a little more leisurely; I'm sure it will be, I really can't see my mom running up a mountain. On a closing note, I'd like to ask anyone whose ever been to China, or better still, anyone who is from China (ahem...Daisy....Wen...ahem), what's with the rock hard beds here? Maybe I'm just spoiled by my super fancy posturepedic at home, but the beds here are about as comfortable as sleeping on a giant slab of rock. I know it's a little early on to be saying it, but I'm definitely looking forward to going home and sleeping in my own bed. I feel like an old granny when I say it, but my back just can't handle China. I'm going to go hobble off and find myself a walking cane now, so I bid you all a good night.